I don’t make it a habit of getting involved in many discussions because of my busy schedule but feel compelled to say something about this subject because I can relate to it. In my book “The New Golden Door to Retirement and Living in Costa Rica” there is a long section with advice on how to find quality women in Costa Rica and how to avoid the gold diggers and other unscrupulous types. You can’t find good women in all of the wrong places.

I was married to a wonderful Costa Rican woman for almost fifteen years. Unfortunately she passed away six years ago. I never experienced the problems that some of the men are discussing in this forum. A couple of years ago I met an attorney who is half my age. I now have another fantastic relationship. I don’t think a man could ask for more. This is not question of luck but doing things the correct way.

Why have I been successful? First, I speak the language. Communication is very important in any relationship. If both people don’t speak the same language there will always be very little communication which can lead to huge problems. Second, if you don’t know the language, you cannot understand the culture which causes more communication gaps and misunderstandings (malentendidos). Third, you have to know where to look. I have always had good luck at meeting women through my Costa Rican and American friends. Working will also increase the odds of meeting someone because of the number of people with whom you come into contact. Joining a gym or taking up a hobby can also help. Church is another option.

About 80% of all of the American men I know have successful relationships with women here. The ones who don’t, find their women in all of the wrong places like bars. Remember the women who are the easiest to meet (hookers and zorras), are more likely to turn out to be bad. Desgraciadamente (unfortunately), during the thirty years I have lived here I have seen many gringos take the easy route and end up paying the price with interest (con intereses as they say in Spanish).

Be sure and look at the people your mate hangs out with and her family. If they appear to be chulos (leaches) or chusma (low-lives) then you are in for a lot of trouble. You can detect this very quickly if your Spanish is good and you have some understanding of the culture.

Anything good in life takes work. If you are patient, take your time and make an effort you can find a quality person.

Mi granito de arena (two cents worth)

In a bold move to overcome hardship and make some money a half dozen supposed “hollywood” stars swallowed a tarantula and crawled through a muddy pit in Costa Rica. Last year, Patricia Blagojevich, wife of disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, made an appearance on “I’m a Celebrity… Get me out Of Here,”.

Mr. Blagojevich told the New York Times, “She has to feed her kids.”
When you’re in Costa Rica, and in dire straits, assuming that all available funds and traditional sources of credit are tapped out, here are 10 ways to raise cash fast. Although all these ideas are legal, here is a list of ten less courageous – and less gross – ways to make money if you are running out of ideas and cash in Costa Rica.

1. Head to the Casino
Understand this first: this is our No. 1 most desperate way to make some quick cash, and only applies in this situation: you have some money, but not enough, and MUST have more within a very short time or your life will fall into ruin. Only then does a reasonable man consider the casino.

2. Pawn Your Stuff
Downtown San José is full of “Compra y Ventas” (pawnshops). They work like this: you offer up your prized possessions as collateral on a loan. You can later have do one of three things: redeem the loan, pay interest to keep the loan alive, or let it lapse and forfeit your goodie.

3. Hold a Garage Sale/Sell Stuff on Craigslist
No, this is not selling your garage. If you have furniture, electronics, children’s items, sports equipment, jewelry, collectibles (in other words, the usual hodgepodge of clutter that most of us once thought we needed to buy), then a yard sale may help you raise some money fast. A good alternative to the garage sale is to make use of Craigslist, a great internet site for buying and selling almost anything legal — furniture, bicycles, musical equipment, housewares, art, and whatever. Over 40 million people use it every month. It’s free and localized, so there is typically no shipping involved.

4. Make stuff to sell
Think of the proverbial lemonade stand, but all grown up. Take a stroll through the Sabana park and you will see people selling all sorts of stuff made at home and a great place for ideas.

5. Collect Your Change
If you are like most, there is hidden cash throughout your home. It may be underneath your sofa cushions, in little jars or piggy banks, but there is bound to be bounties of colones just waiting for you to unearth them. You may be surprised how much you find and how much all that “small change” is worth.

6. Recycle Scrap Metal
One way you can get some quick cash is to sell scrap metal to your local salvage yard. And Costa Rica has an endless supply of scrap metal everywhere. There are a number of good ones in Belén, across the gas station on the north side of the General Cañas, before the brewery.

7. Take In A Roommate
Sharing living expenses can put more cash in your pocket. However, if you ask someone to move into your spare room — or onto your couch — draw up rules and boundaries, even/especially if your prospective boarder is someone you know.

8. Become a Driving Instructor
This is your chance to teach Costa Ricans how to drive and make money too. Since there is no need for licensing and no need to even have a safe, working vehicle, becoming a driving instructor is a simple a placing an ad in the local newspaper, supermarket notice board or letting your neighbours know. Here is a tag line you might you “learn to drive the American way”.

9. Dog Walker, errand runner, driver or computer consultant
We lumped than all into one, since anyone can walk a dog, run an errand, driver or give advice on computers.

10. Sell Stuff to Motorists
If all the above have failed or are not for you, there is always the “roadside sales” route, where can pull in some quick cash. Pick high-profit items that aren’t highly perishable and/or have a high cost/sale price ratio: cold soda, corn, baked goods, flowers. Of course, a good spot where there is traffic congestion is the best. And in San José that is easy finding a good spot.

Tomorrow the reforms to the Ley de Tránsito could be approved into law, given that 28 legislators voted in favour, while 14 against, in first vote taken at 7:15pm Tuesday night.

According to legislative rules, the next vote cannot be taken until Thursday, where if the majority vote in favour, the Ley de Tránsito that went into effect on March 1, 2010, will see the following major changes:

1. A reduction in the amount of the traffic fines

2. The elimination of the point system

3. Drunk drivers will only face criminal charges if found with a 0.75 blood alcohol content

As to the fines, the fine of ¢227.000 colones for reckless driving or driving under the influence or driving in excess of 120 km/h stays the same. No changes were also made to the ¢146.700 fine for not respecting a traffic signal, like running a red light or not having the vehicular inspection up to date.

The fines reduced are those for driving a motorcycle in the middle of the road or sidewalk, from ¢99.756 to ¢49.858; illegal parking from ¢79.218 to ¢38.142; blocking an intersection or driving with an expired license, from ¢56.680 to ¢29.340; not having the vehicle registration in the vehicle, from ¢41.076 to ¢20.538; and not respecting the vehicular restrictions of San José, from ¢20.538 to ¢8.802.

A full list of the fines will be available once the law is approved.

Some of the other important changes is the keeping of the six months to eight years prison and a suspension of a drivers license from one to five years for “vehicular manslaughter”. That sanction, however, doubles to one to sixteen years prison and from 5 to 15 years suspension is alcohol (over 0.50) is involved

Courtesy of Insidecostarica.com

Courtesy of indide Costa Rica

For the first time in all my years of driving in Costa Rica my eyes yesterday were focused on the speedometer and the road ahead, watching for traffic cops with a radar unit. The new Ley de Tránsito had a great effect on my driving habits, which overnight had to change drastically.

Not only now was I concerned with keeping an eye on other drivers, the many “idiots” that circulate on Costa Rican roads, but concerned with keeping my speed under the 20 km/h limit and paying particular attention to the posted speed limits, something I have rarely done.

Like most drivers I have been pulled over on a number of occasion. Save for my “pull overs” in Nicaragua, all my Costa Rican “pull overs” have been for speeding. Hey, I like to go fast and with ¢5.000 colones in my pocket I could easily afford to give myself the luxury, when the road and conditions permitted, of course.

However, yesterday, travelling from San José to Guanacaste was another thing. Although I had expected a great concentration of traffic cops all over the place, especially at major intersections and known radar spots, I only found two traffic crews operating – one in Limonal and the other near the Nicoya intersection, in both places where the speed limit drops from 80 kn/h to 40 km/h, only for an instant.

In all in all, even though I kept a vigil eye on my speedometer and kept within the limits as much as possible, my driving time from Santa Ana to Hacienda Pinilla took only 20 minutes longer than the same trip the week earlier before the new traffic law.

At night coming back, I didn’t have to worry about my speed,, as you see the radar units do not work at night in Costa Rica, especially outside of the Central Valley. Shish, don’t read it aloud, keep our little secret to yourself.

My major concern for being pulled over was simply economical. There is the fine, Ok, it will dent my pocket book, a lot. But more, the points. Accumulating points with a “first world” law in a “third world” country is very simple and can be very fast.

The traffic cops have their new armament, a law that intents to drop the mortality rate on the nation’s roads (28 deaths alone last month) and reduce reckless driving habits, but the roads are still the same.

With the exception of the new highway to Caldera, the majority of the roads lack proper signalization and design to make it safe and easy to offend. Drivers on many of the roads are kept guessing of the speed limit, for example, or incorrect or improper road dividers.

Crossing a median can be very costly. But, a majority of the roads do not have a median painted on the road surface. Maybe it did once, but the rain, the heavy use and the lack of maintenance, many times leaves only a trace of where the median once was.

Two things I noticed yesterday during my tour of the roads: one, traffic was lighter than normal, both during the day and the evening; and two, the new has not stopped the “idiots”, not the many few who commit errors, but have no clue that they are not only committing errors but endanger the lives of others with their idiotic acts.

In one example, a pair of knuckle heads decided to two a vehicle on the new San José-Caldera. The front vehicle was towing the rear vehicle, in total darkness (at 11pm), going up the hill to the Atenas toll station, and without flashing lights and reflectors, going maybe 20 km/h. I wish I was making this up. But nearly plowed into these two.

For the lack of traffic cops on the road last night – the only traffic cops on the road between Liberia and Santa Ana was the pair at Limonal, in front of the Shell station, probably having a “gallo pinto”, since there are no donut shops in Costa Rica.

I did report the idiots to the toll station operator who told he would report it to his boss, that would probably report it to his or her boss and so on. Fortunately there was no news of an accident on the highway last night.

All in all, I am in favour of the new traffic law and will reduce my speed and change my driving habits.

But, lets get the idiots off the roads, Please.

During the many seminars I speak at and on my monthly relocation retirement tours people almost always ask about earthquakes in Costa Rica. Earthquakes and volcanoes seem to big a big concern.

Costa Rica does have strict seismic codes which cover the construction of homes and other buildings. Costa Rica’s architects are first-rate and design buildings to withstand medium-size earthquakes. In 1974 Costa Rica’s structural engineers developed the country’s fist earthquake code to regulate construction. The code was revised in 1986 and again in 2002. Many buildings built before the first code went into effect have been reinforced to meet the new standards.

I’d like to point out that no building are earthquake proof. Most of the new homes and larger structures can withstand an earthquake of moderate intensity. Costa Rica’s standards are like those found in Chile. Recently, the latter suffered a large earthquake and the damage was minimal because of the strict earthquake codes. On the other hand, a country like Haiti was devastated because of substandard construction. Over 200,000 person lost their lives as a result.

No matter how good construction may be, damage from an earthquake depends on several factors. First, the magnitude of the quake and amount of energy released. Second, the depth of the quake. Third, the distance from the epicenter of where large concentrations of people are located. Fourth, the stability of the soil. Finally, the condition of the structures near the epicenter.

I have been in several small quakes during the 30 years I lived in Costa Rica and the damage was minimal. I was visiting Los Angeles, California in 1994 and happened to experience the big earthquake that occurred. It was much more frightening and caused far more damage than any of the quakes I have experienced here.